Australian readers remember: An oral history of reading 1890-1930

by Martyn Lyons

Australian Readers Remember is a novel cultural history, based on an investigation into the reading habits of sixty elderly Australians, who were asked to recall and to analyse what they were reading in the late nineteenth century and during the first three decades of the twentieth century, It is the first work of Australian literary history to focus on readers' experience and attitudes. Part One discusses the project, the place of oral history, and the problems involved in analysing the finding. Part Two offers an account of readers' memories of novels, verse, children's books, newspapers etc. Part Three examines the diffusion of literature and how the subjects obtained access to books. Part Four, the most original in the book, analyses the status of reading, attitudes towards books, as well as myths and prejudices surrounding the act of reading.

Genres: Nonfiction

230 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1992

About the author

Emeritus Professor of History & European Studies
BA DPhil Oxford FAHA
School of Humanities and Languages

He was born in London, took his D.Phil. at Oxford University and has been at UNSW since 1977. He is a former head of the history school, and was the Faculty’s Associate Dean for Research and Postgraduate Affairs from 2002-7. He is currently Professor of History and European Studies in the School of Humanities. His main research interests are in two distinct fields: French revolutionary and Napoleonic history and the history of books, reading and writing in Europe and Australia. He has produced sixteen books, including 'A History of Reading and Writing in the Western World' (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010), and more recently 'The Writing Culture of ordinary people in Europe, c. 1860-1920' (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

He is currently working on an ARC-funded project to investigate the writing practices of uneducated and semi-literate peasants in France, Spain and Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

He has held visiting positions at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Paris, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, the University of Alcalá de Henares and the Universidade Federal Fluminense in Niteroi, Brazil. In 1997, he was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy for the Humanities. In 2003, he was awarded the Centenary Medal for services to the Humanities in the study of History. In 2008-20, he was President of the Australian Historical Association. In 2008, he was Campagnia di San Paolo- Bogliasco Foundation Fellow at the Liguria Study Centre in Genoa, and in 2010 he was a Camargo Foundation Fellow in Cassis, France.